Facebook Now Turns Your Friends News Feed Into Ads

Facebook is introducing a new ad format, called Sponsored Stories. It is based on information collected from your friends status updates, combined with information from the location service Facebook Places.

When a user checks in to claimed Place, Likes a Page, or shares content to the news feed from an application that has paid for Sponsored Stories, that activity may appear as an advertisement to their friends. The ad is shown in special right sidebar module, and displays the user’s name and photo, any additional context or friends they’ve tagged, a picture of and link to the advertised Facebook Page or app, and the Likes and comments from the original post.

The ad that you will be shown, can end up looking something like this:

Sponsored Stories is released in the U.S. today, but it is not clear when the service will be offered in other countries. See the video below to get a short introduction to the new service.